


speed the collapse

by crumbsfiction



Category: Death Note, Death Note (Live Action TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Nonbinary Character, Origin Story, it's cheesy ok i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 22:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4853396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crumbsfiction/pseuds/crumbsfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tokyo is enticing. The case even more so. </p><p>Light most of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	speed the collapse

There are thirty-one children in the orphanage.

On the morning Lawliet arrives the snow is dusting the stony ground like white feathers, the cold nipping his nose and whispering hushed promises of a long and relentless winter. The boy burrows his nose in the large woven scarf he was given by the elderly man next to him and shoves a gloved hand into the pocket of his beige coat.

Near clutches his other hand like it’s the only thing that keeps them from drowning. Lawliet gives a small squeeze back as the tall iron gate swings open with a horrendous groan.

The children kicking around a football stop at the sound, turning their heads curiously towards the newcomers.

“Let’s get you all settled in, shall we?” says Watari with a gentle smile.

There are thirty-three children in the orphanage. Lawliet counts them all.

-

The siblings have visited churches several times before, but never this close to Christmas, and never accompanied by this many children around their age.

The clothes he wore the last time he stepped inside a holy building were all black and now they’re buried somewhere in the space under his bed, shoved in the far corner where he can’t see them, bundled up carelessly amid various half-empty boxes and a few scattered books - leftovers from the previous tenants of the room he’s occupying alone.

He picked a plain white sweatshirt out of the laundry basket this morning; it doesn’t belong to him, but none of the other children stopped to complain at breakfast. And so he tugs at the strings dangling in front and eventually pulls them out of the loops altogether.

Near is wearing a dark grey jumper, softly contrasting with the crisp colour of their white hair.

“Maybe you’d like to light a candle,” the teacher accompanying the children suggests, “and think of someone you miss”.

In a room full of parentless children there are a lot of people to be missed. However high the ceiling might be, however wide the space between the heavy brick walls, there suddenly seems to be no room left for anything but the pressing sadness and longing of children too young to be left alone. Perhaps, Lawliet thinks, the teacher regrets having said anything at all.

A lot of people are thought of, a lot of candles lit.

Lawliet ties the drawstring from his borrowed shirt around one of the chandeliers and says nothing.

-

Watari reads the newspaper in the armchair by the stained-glass window every Saturday morning, a cup of steaming aromatic tea on the table next to him and a few biscuits on a painted porcelain plate.

It’s a sight as familiar to the children of the orphanage as the sight of the moon in the sky.

When he’s done, fingers stained with ink, he folds the heavy paper up and leaves it hanging over the sturdy, leather-clad arm of the chair.

From his place curled up on the steps, Lawliet tilts his head and squints to read the headline of the first page.

 _Police baffled_ , it says and the boy rises and pads over to lift the newspaper by his fingertips. _Double homicide leaves no clues_.

He quickly drops the paper and runs down the stairs as fast as his small feet can carry him to find a decent pen and a notebook.

(“That spark in his eyes”, Watari will tell a senior police officer, many years later. Lawliet will pretend not to hear him.)

-

Near does not want to interact with other children, the adults say. This does not worry their older brother as he too, does not want to interact with other children.

They relish the company of each other, spent mostly in companionable silence, disturbed only by the _click click click_ of a puzzle being finished or the vibrating buzz of a mechanic train.

Watari brings them tea and biscuits and somehow, Lawliet has the nagging suspicion he’s keeping the two of them locked away, like Rapunzel in her tower, _it’s for your own good, dear_ , but he doesn’t mind.

-

Tokyo is enticing. The case even more so.

Lawliet has never worked with a task force in person before and he tells Near about it on a scrambled phone-line when the others have gone home for the day.

About the always resourceful Himura, the dedicated Aizawa, the righteous Mogi and the hard-working Matsuda. 

About the dutiful chief and his son.

“That sounds exiting,” Near says on the other side of the world, bright voice small and filled with admiration. 

“It is,” Lawliet surprises himself by saying. “It definitely is.”

Tokyo is enticing. The case even more so. 

Light most of all.

-

A list of other select things Lawliet has never done before:

• Introduced himself in public as L  
• Been defeated in a game of tennis  
• Handcuffed his own person to a murder suspect  
• Been physically tackled out of the way of a bullet  
• Called someone a friend, at least a small degree of sincerity in his voice

He pretends not to think about how all of these new experiences find their origin in one certain young student.

-

This is where it ends.

There is a raw emotion in screaming until your lungs burn that Lawliet has never experienced before, always so carefully closed off, high up in Rapunzel’s tower, and he thinks of a white string around a chandelier in Winchester and about lighting candles for those you miss.

 _I’ll light a candle for you_ , he thinks, and signs Light’s death sentence.

“Goodbye,” says Light, and signs Lawliet’s.

Neither has any effect.

All of that comes later.

There is a certain tragedy in always being right as well as a certain satisfaction in putting all cards on the table. There are no tricks left, no mind games, no more pretenses. It’s the most alive Lawliet has ever felt in his two decades of life, his lip split and bleeding, his ribs bruised, his pristine clothes covered in dust.

This is where it ends.

When his heart stops, he looks Light in the face and there are words passing between them, soundless and quick as butterfly kisses.

_how did you do it how how how it wasn’t me i swear but you lost but i won i lost you won you lost how_

_were you telling the truth_

_i would have wanted to have been your friend forever_

Light screams and screams and Lawliet does not hear him.

-

The warehouse goes up in flames and Near clutches whoever is closest and thinks of churches and ink-stained fingers.

“Let’s go home,” Watari says a few days later and Near nods even though their home in England feels like an entire lifetime away, a light-year, an eon in which a brother has been lost and found and lost again, everything is upturned and nothing feels quite right anymore.

The ring on their finger feels oddly heavy.

When they step onto the plane, they don’t look back. 

- 

There are thirty-two children in the orphanage.

**Author's Note:**

> hahahha. hahah ok. the drama broke me. BROKE ME
> 
> i also cannot believe that i read death note for the first time like 8 years ago but i've never written any fic for it before. first time for everything i suppose? also, the title is from the song speed the collapse by metric. it's good. it's lawlight
> 
> hit me up on tumblr @ jsuya.tumblr.com !!


End file.
